This invention relates to a diving jacket having a buoyancy compensating function.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,641,1247 discloses a diving jacket comprising a combination of spider and buoyancy compensator provided with an insertable weight system. In this well-known diving jacket, a buoyancy compensating weight is put in an envelope provided with a flap and this envelope is, in turn, adapted to be inserted into A pocket formed on a waist band portion covering the jacket wearer""s waist. The flap of the envelope is adapted to close an opening of the pocket and provided on its outer surface with a knob for hand-grip. The flap may be opened with the knob gripped by the hand to pull the envelope out from the pocket while this well-known jacket includes envelope fastening means provided within the pocket in order to prevent anxiety that the envelope might unintentionally fall off from the pocket, such fastening means makes it difficult to insert the envelope completely into the pocket.
The diving jacket 101 illustrated in FIG. 7 of the accompanying drawings is also well known. This jacket 101 comprises a pocket 102 provided with a flap 103 and a weight pouch 104 provided with a cord used to draw this pouch 104 from the pocket 102. In this jacket 101 having the pocket 102 provided with the flap 103, the pocket 102 is provided on its outer surface with a surface fastener 102a and the flap 103 is provided on its inner surface with a surface fastener 103a. These surface fasteners 102a, 103a are separably engaged with each other so that the weight pouch 104 can be put in the pocket 102 without an anxiety that the weight pouch 104 might unintentionally fall off from the pocket 102. The flap 103 of the pocket 102 closes with the cord 105 of the pouch 104 interleaved between the outer surface of the pocket 102 and the inner surface of the flap 103 so that the cord 105 may be pulled in a direction indicated by an arrow X with a hand-grip knob 106 attached to the distal end of the cord 105 held by one hand to open the flap 103 and thereby to pull the pouch 104 out from the pocket 102. However, if the cord 105 is placed aside up- or downward when the flap 105 is closed, the cord 105 will be not properly interleaved between the outer surface of the pocket 102 and the inner surface of the flap 103. In such a situation, the flap 103 can not be quickly opened even if the cord 105 is pulled and pulling out of the pouch 104 may be often retarded. In this jacket 101, a surface fastener 106a is attached to the cord 105 so that the cord 105 may be fixed to the outer surface of the pocket 102 by means of this surface fastener 106a. However, it is difficult to fix the cord 105 to a vertically middle area of the pocket 102 in a single procedure. In addition, after the cord 105 has been interleaved between the pocket 102 and the flap 103, there is a possibility that a gap may be left between the surface fasteners 102a, 103a in the vicinity of the cord 105 and the flap 103 may be unintentionally opened.
It is an object of this invention to improve a diving jacket so that the buoyancy compensating weight may be easily taken out from a pocket, and a fastening strength of a flap attached to the pocket may be significantly improved.
According to this invention, there is provided a buoyancy compensating jacket comprising a back portion extending in a vertical direction, a pair of shoulder portions extending downward from transversely opposite sides of an upper portion of the back portion and a pair of waist portions extending forward in a waist-circumferential direction orthogonal to the vertical direction from transversely opposite sides of a lower end portion of the back portion and connected to the shoulder portion, the back portion being provided with means adapted to fix an air cylinder and the waist portion being provided with at least one pocket extending in the waist-circumferential direction and having an opening at its forward end thereof in the waist-circumferential direction and a pouch having a flat cord and being adapted to be inserted into and taken out from the pocket with a weight packed into the pouch.
The pocket comprises a first flap extending backward in the waist-circumferential direction, a pair of surface fasteners releasably engaged with each other and provided on an inner surface of the first flap and an outer surface of the pocket respectively and a guide means provided on at least one of the first flap and the pocket so as to enable the flat cord of the pouch inserted into the pocket to extend outward from the pocket substantially in a vertically middle area on the inner surface of the first flap.
This invention includes the following embodiments.
The guide means comprises a substantially C-shaped guide ring which is provided substantially in the vertically middle area to a distal end of the first flap extending backward in the waist-circumferential direction and has an opening backward in the waist-circumferential direction. The guide ring has an inner diameter extending in the vertical direction larger than a width of the flat cord as measured in the vertical direction and the opening is smaller than the width of the flat cord.
The guide means comprises a groove defined between two sections of the surface fastener which are bisected and spaced from each other in the vertical direction on at least one of the inner surface of the first flap and the outer surface of the pocket and a dimension of the groove in a depth direction thereof is substantially equal to or larger than a thickness of the flat cord.
The guide means comprise the substantially C-shaped guide ring which is provided substantially in the vertically middle area to the distal end of the first flap extending backward in the waist-circumferential direction and has the opening backward in the waist-circumferential direction wherein the guide ring has the inner diameter extending in the vertical direction larger than the width of the flat cord as measured in the vertical direction and the opening is smaller than the width, and the groove defined between two sections of the surface fastener which is bisected and spaced from each other in the vertical direction on at least one of the inner surface of the first flap and the outer surface of the pocket wherein the dimension of the groove in the depth direction thereof is substantially equal to or larger than the thickness of the flat cord.
The pouch has an insertion opening for a weight at a forward end thereof in the waist-circumferential direction, a second flap adapted to open and close the insertion opening and the flexible flat cord extending in the waist-circumferential direction and being adapted to be guided by the guide means and provided on a distal end thereof in the waist-circumferential direction with a hand-grip extending in a transverse direction of the flat cord beyond the width of the flat cord.
The waist portion is provided with a press flap adapted to overlap an outer surface of the first flap in a closed state and extending from back to front in the waist-circumferential direction and the outer surface of the first flap and an inner surface of the press flap are adapted to be separably integrated with each other by means of a pair of surface fasteners attached to these surfaces.